scarcely daylight when Zuleika, while dressing, heard a quick
tapping upon her shutter. She opened it to the scared and bewildered
face of her brother.

"What happened with her and father last night?" he said hoarsely.

"Nothing--why?"

"Read that. It was brought to me half an hour ago by a man in dad's
sleigh, from the stage station."

He handed her a crumpled note with trembling fingers. She took it and
read:--

"The game's up and I'm out of it! Take my advice and clear out of it
too, until you can come back in better shape. Don't be such a fool as
to try and follow me. Your father isn't one, and that's where you've
slipped up."

"He shall pay for it, whatever he's done," said her brother with an
access of wild passion. "Where is he?"

"Why, Jack, you wouldn't dare to see him now?"

"Wouldn't I?" He turned and ran, convulsed with passion, before the
windows towards the front of the house. Zuleika slipped out of her
bedroom and ran to her father's room. He was not there. Already she
could hear her brother hammering frantically against the locked front
door.

The door of the office was partly open. Her father was still there.
Asleep? Yes, for he had apparently sunk forward before the cold hearth.
But the hands that he had always been trying to warm were colder than
the hearth or ashes, and he himself never again spoke nor stirred.

*****

It was deemed providential by the neighbors that his youngest and
favorite son, alarmed by news of his father's failing health, had
arrived from the Atlantic States just at the last moment. But it was
thought singular that after the division of the property he entirely
abandoned the Ranch, and that even pending the division his beautiful
but fastidious Eastern bride declined to visit it with her husband.

JOHNSON'S "OLD WOMAN."

It was growing dark, and the Sonora trail was becoming more indistinct
before me at every step. The difficulty had increased over the grassy
slope, where the overflow from some smaller watercourse above had worn a
number of diverging gullies so like the trail as to be undistinguishable
from it. Unable to determine which was the right one, I threw the reins
over the mule's neck and resolved to trust to that superior animal's
sagacity, of which I had heard so much. But I had not taken into account
the equally well-known weaknesses of sex and species, and Chu Chu had
already shown uncontrollable signs of wanting her own way. Without a
mom